


we must be miles up

by anarchetypal



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: M/M, Nitrous - Freeform, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Whippets, hotel room shenanigans, if brian pines any harder he's gonna start growing antique furniture out of his spine, unironic use of the word 'tubular'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 19:36:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9400010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchetypal/pseuds/anarchetypal
Summary: “Hi,” Danny says, like he doesn’t have his arms full of bright, neon-colored balloons. “How was your shower?”“Did you rob a clown,” Brian says flatly.“I have drugs!” Danny singsongs in reply, stepping into the room and letting the balloons tumble out of his arms and go rolling in random directions.“Are those drugs LSD, and did you take them ten minutes ago?”Danny laughs at him and scoops up one of the balloons, pops it into the air in Brian’s direction. “No— The concert, remember? You were asking about whippets. And here they are. I made whippets appear. I’m the goddamn whippet king.”“Ah,” Brian says, letting the door swing shut and catching the balloon before it hits the floor. “I remember. And then I said, ‘after the concert, why don’t you go out in your boxers and buy drugs?’ That was my favorite part of the conversation.”“These are indeed my drug-buying boxers,” Danny says, agreeably and without hesitation.





	

**Author's Note:**

> aka that post-concert whippets fic for the wonderful egocentrifuge's birthday

 

Look, Brian is—Brian is _hip_ with the _kids_ , okay?

Really. He spends most of his days playing video games and writing songs about dicks. He regularly performs for crowds of twenty-somethings. He has an _instagram_.

But sometimes—very occasionally, once in a blue moon—he has to outsource information about hip things to somebody more knowledgeable.

Unfortunately, that somebody is usually Danny.

Danny is, somehow, the youngest old person Brian knows—which is some hell of a feat, honestly, because he includes himself in that list of young-old people.

Meaning Danny regularly squeals with unbridled joy over Skittles, and Danny is incapable of encountering a chair or couch without sitting on it sideways or backwards or upside down, and one time Danny pushed aside a room of eight year olds to get a turn at hitting a Dora the Explorer piñata, and then again to grab several handfuls of cheap dollar store candy.

But Danny is...worldly, or whatever, and perhaps more intune with all things “cool,” not that Brian would admit it. Brian is cool. Brian is hip! He has a phD, okay, he _knows_ things.

What he doesn’t know is why the hell a few handfuls of people in the crowd at their concert are holding inflated balloons.

They stand out like a sea of multicolored jellyfish, or like Bozo the Clown got drunk and wandered into a concert and forgot how to make balloon animals. Brian stares at them from backstage where he and Danny are waiting for the opening band to finish their set, and he wonders if this is the new version of holding up lighters or the lit screens of cell phones.

He says as much, wondering aloud, and glances over in time to see Danny blink at him in surprise before he breaks out into giggling, snorting laughter.

Brian tries to be insulted. Which is—not easy, to be honest, because mostly he’s just appreciating Danny’s face and the way he squeaks when he laughs too hard.

As it is, Danny doubles over and ends up with his ass on the stage floor, legs bent, head between his knees as he, in Brian’s frank opinion, overreacts completely to a totally reasonable question.

“You know, you’re really harshing my quest-for-knowledge mellow right now,” Brian says dryly.

Danny visibly struggles to quelch his giggles. “Sorry,” he says, not looking particularly sorry at all. “They’re, uh, balloons filled with noz, dude.”

Brian gives him a look he’s hoping isn’t as blank at it feels. “Okay.”

“Nitrous,” Danny clarifies, and then, “They’re whippets, man.”

Ah. That one hits. He wasn’t aware that shit was still popular since, hell, the early nineties. “They look like they got lost on the way to a bar mitzvah.”

“My bar mitzvah would’ve been a hell of a lot cooler if these guys showed up.” Danny pauses. “And creepier, seeing as though it was filled with a bunch of dorky twelve year-old Jews.”

“You do it before?” Brian asks, curious despite himself.

“It’s been a while. Used to at concerts and shit. It was…really fucking good, actually.” Danny’s eyes drift like he’s remembering something sublime. “Why,” he asks, reaching up and making grabby hands at the air until Brian rolls his eyes and takes his hands to haul him to his feet, “you interested?”

And that—that’s actually an interesting question. Brian’s instinct is to say no, just on the basis that huffing gas out of a gross balloon in a city he’s never been to before just feels like a less than exciting endeavor.

But the way Danny had looked in his reminiscence—that’s something to consider. And, anyway, Brian is _hip_ , remember, he’s cool, he’s willing to entertain the idea of huffing gas out of a gross balloon in a city he’s never been to before.

“Sure,” he says, shrugging. It’s not like it’s going to happen any time soon; they’ve got a full schedule for a majority of the night. It’s not like they have time to go looking for a balloon dealer in the middle of a crowded concert.

Danny opens his mouth to respond, and then Brian registers the fading applause and the squeak of microphone feedback as their band is introduced. Danny lights up, bouncing on his feet a little. Brian smiles at the fact that Danny’s excitement over an imminent performance hasn’t lessened since their early days. If anything, it’s gotten even greater.

Then Danny’s throwing an arm around Brian’s shoulders, and they’re walking out on stage as they jostle each other in little hyping-up actions, and Brian’s half-blinded by the lights as applause fires up again, and he forgets about much of anything other than the crowd and the stage and Danny.

——

There’s an energy that remains long after the end of a successful show; it usually means Brian and Danny spend far too long meeting with fans, signing scraps of paper and fanart and random objects (a dildo, once, that was memorable) until their well-meaning manager ushers them back to their hotel. By then, they’re near-dead on their feet.

Danny’s got his arm around Brian’s shoulders again as they walk unsteadily down the hallway towards their hotel room. This time, he holds up his phone. Brian smiles tiredly until Danny explodes into an improvised thank you commentary to their fans with enough glee that he’s clearly amused at Brian’s confusion.

Brian gives Danny a small shove and steals his phone from him to add to the video, grinning as Danny swears and stumbles against the wall. They scuffle a little for the phone good-naturedly, shouting over each other at the camera (“Thank you all—” “Well, I thank you all _more_ —” “I thank you all the _most_ —” “Times _infinity_ —”) until a disgruntled hotel guest throws open his door and snaps at them to _shut the hell up, people are sleeping here_.

The video ends with Danny giggling out an apology over his shoulder as they finally reach their room at the end of the hall.

Brian fumbles with the room key, having to slide it a few times with increasing impatience until the light turns green and he can push the door open.

And then Danny’s crashing into him from behind, shouldering past him into the room. “I call first shower!” he sings out, voice hoarse from the toils of the concert but no less delighted for it as he tosses his bag down haphazardly in the entryway, charges into the bathroom like a conquering general, and pulls the door shut behind him.

“If you think that’s going to stop me from coming in there with you,” Brian starts, struggling to keep the laughter from his voice in favor of a faux-menacing tone, and then he gives up and grins when he hears the unmistakable click of the lock of the bathroom door sliding into place. “A celebratory bro shower,” he calls out over the sound of the water turning on. “Like football players do after the big game? Probably? Dan?”

He’s mostly talking to himself at this point, moving further into the room to claim a bed. The only benefit to Dan commandeering the bathroom is that Brian can now be a supreme asshole and take the bed Dan’s going to want—the one closest to the door, farthest from the AC, because Danny always ends up freezing his skinny ass off in hotels.

That might have something to do with the fact that Brian turns the air down to ‘Hypothermia for Dan’ levels on the totally legitimate pretense of it being scientifically better for the health of specifically and _only_ your balls if you sleep in the cold.

(“You can’t use your PhD in fucking theoretical physics as an excuse to pretend to be an expert in everything,” Danny complained once.

Brian had taken that as a personal challenge and then, well, here they were.)

So Brian takes the bed closest to the door, farthest from the AC, and tosses his duffel bag down before he collapses onto the plush sheets. He’s still buzzing with post-concert adrenaline, with the two encore performances that had left Danny with a hoarse voice but grinning wide, the both of them squinting against the stage lights out into the crowd as the final strains of “Wish You Were Here” drifted out and bled into applause that rumbles and hums in the center of his chest even now.

This is Brian’s life.

Yellow light from the parking lot filters in through the thin curtains, and maybe it’d feel tepid, lonely, if not for the muted white noise of the shower running and steam rolling under the crack of the bathroom door and Danny’s gentle humming, changing keys on a whim with little hoarse post-show voice cracks that shouldn’t be so endearing.

This is Brian’s life and it’s surreal, sometimes more so in the gentle aftermath of a concert than in the heat of one.

Not that the shows don’t have their moments. Danny gets so caught up in the energy sometimes that it’s like his emotions can’t stay within him. More often than not, that manifests as Danny sprinting across stage to wrap Brian in a bear hug after their final song and kissing him so hard on the cheek Brian thinks—hopes, sometimes—it’ll bruise.

But Brian remembers the first time, early this year, that Danny’s traditional end-of-show kiss landed directly on his mouth.

There’s a photo some fan took that’s made its rounds on social media—it’s the split second after Danny kisses him and pulls away: there’s the blur of Danny bouncing back to center stage, and there’s Brian, wide-eyed, hair mussed, mouth open slightly. During the show, he’d managed to compose himself pretty quickly, but Danny discovered the picture within a few days and was so delighted by it he _still_ sends it to Brian sometimes.

And so now sometimes Danny half-tackles him at the end of shows and ambushes him with a kiss—a real one.

And it’s—it has to be an adrenaline thing, a celebratory thing, a raw energy reactionary thing, because Danny never makes a big deal out of it and it never lasts more than a fraction of a second and he never mentions it after.

And Brian doesn’t ask about it.

And it’s fine.

It’s just a thing they do.

Brian kicks off his shoes and lets them drop from the bed to the floor as he tugs his phone from his pocket, pulls up the Instagram app to watch the comments start pouring in on the video they just uploaded.

One day, maybe he’ll get used to their popularity and the virtually instant feedback it provides, the outpouring of support and love; for now he smiles at the generic _i wish i could’ve been there!_ comments, the _i was there and it was fucking incredible_ , the _come to my city next!_

He huffs out a laugh at someone’s _i’m calling the police. danny’s making me confused about my sexuality_ and can’t really stop himself from typing out a quick _Get in line_ in response.

A few minutes later, he rolls his eyes at someone’s reply of _Danny and Brian sitting in a tree, F-U-C-K-I -N-G_. Rolls his eyes harder when he sees the comment came from Ross.

He’s about to reply to that, really gearing up for a stupid, satisfying back-and-forth, when a rush of steam billows out from the bathroom as Danny pushes the door open. He emerges from the cloud of steam, skin wet and flushed from the heat of his shower.

Brian is, somewhere in the back of his mind, aware that he’s staring—and, fuck, he’s never going to learn any better than this, is he; he’s never going to end up anywhere but here, watching Danny like he’s on the outside looking in, like Danny’s not tangible for him, like the way he looks at theorems he can’t touch.

Danny catches Brian staring and grins, striking a dramatic pose that nearly dislodges his towel and almost gives Brian a fucking heart attack. “How do I look, stud?”

“Like a demented Towel Wizard,” Brian deadpans.

“You’re goddamn right I do,” Danny says proudly, pulling a shirt on over his head. He drops his towel to pull on a pair of boxers, and Brian—doesn’t pretend to leer, doesn’t make a joke, just glances away and doesn’t look back until Danny’s towel hits him in the back of the head.

Brian snorts and finally hauls himself out of bed, gently shouldering Dan out of the way and tossing the towel on top of Danny’s damp poof of hair as he goes to take his own shower. “If you used up all the hot water, the police will never find your body.”

“Uh. I gotta— I gotta go, you know what, we need ice, I’m gonna go get ice.” Danny’s laughing as he ducks out of reach of Brian’s annoyed, swatting hands and grabs the ice bucket before darting out of the room barefooted.

The only consolation for the lukewarm shower is that he’s almost positive Danny left without grabbing his copy of the room key, and Brian’s not going to be in a hurry to finish showering to let him back in when he has to do the Knock of Shame.

Surprisingly, Brian gets in and out of the shower with no sign of Danny returning, and it’s only when he emerges from the bathroom with his hair wet and plastered down to his head that he hears—well, not a knock. It sounds more like Dan is kicking the door.

“Property damage,” Brian calls out, and takes his sweet time letting him in, throwing on an undershirt and a pair of sweatpants and fuck you, Ninja Brian likes to go commando sometimes.

He’s not expecting to open the door and see Danny with his arms full of bright, neon-colored balloons.

“Hi,” Danny says, like he doesn’t have his arms full of bright, neon-colored balloons. “How was your shower?”

“Did you rob a clown,” Brian says flatly.

“I have drugs!” Danny singsongs in reply, stepping into the room and letting the balloons tumble out of his arms and go rolling in random directions.

“Are those drugs LSD, and did you take them ten minutes ago?”

Danny laughs at him and scoops up one of the balloons, pops it into the air in Brian’s direction. “No— The concert, remember? You were asking about whippets. And here they are. I made whippets appear. I’m the goddamn whippet king.”

“Ah,” Brian says, letting the door swing shut and catching the balloon before it hits the floor. “I remember. And then I said, ‘after the concert, why don’t you go out in your boxers and buy drugs?’ That was my favorite part of the conversation.”

“These are indeed my drug-buying boxers,” Danny says, agreeably and without hesitation.

And, alright, sure, Brian had asked about the balloons, had expressed interest in trying inhalants—he’d try anything with Dan, the definition of succumbing to peer pressure, the archetype of the teenager doing anything to get a smile from his crush, and it’s not like he’s a goddamn straightedge, hello.

He just imagined getting high with Dan for the first time to look like—fuck if he knows, just something _different_ than a dark, strange hotel room in a dark, strange city, balloons floating in air-conditioning flurries over the carpet.

Danny ducks down and scoops up a bright green balloon, reaches out and bobs Brian gently on the head with it. “So. You ready for this, Daddy-Mack?” he asks, which—that’s not really fair, actually, because aside from the fact that _daddy_ just came out of Danny's mouth, whatever the form, Brian’s still trying to psyche himself up.

You have to give a man the proper psyching up timeslot before encouraging him to inhale copious amounts of nitrous. That’s just polite.

What Brian intends to do is give a deadpanned intonation of “You better believe it, baby.”

He’s pretty sure what he actually ends up doing is giving Danny a deer-in-the-headlights look and blurting, “What.”

This is because Danny blinks at him in surprise, and his tone is concerned when he asks, “You’re not, like, nervous, are you?” which basically makes Brian want to go outside onto the balcony and find out if it’s possible to die from a fall from the fourth floor.

He struggles to save face, to smooth things over with sarcasm. “Nervous? Who’s nervous? Frankly, it sounds like you’re just accusing me of being nervous because _you’re_ nervous. Nice try, Avidan. Of course I’m ready. I’m cool, okay, I’m hip, I do this shit all the time. Let’s go rail a couple lines of coke after this.”

“Brian—”

“But not off of my body.”

“Brian, hey—”

“I know you want to, but this chest is just too hairy and manly, okay, it’s for your own good. We’re just going to have to kick it old school and do it off a questionably-clean bathroom counter.”

“No, hey, c’mon,” Danny says soothingly. “It’s okay that you’re nervous. It’s like you’re actually being honest for once.”

And Danny says it to make him feel better, Brian knows, and he wants to feel better, but for some reason it’s frustrating.

He wants to say, _That’s not me—the fear, I’m not that, I’m just standing here behind it wishing I could kiss you._

Instead, he says, “I resent the implication that I’m not always one hundred percent genuine with you at all times.”

Danny snorts. “Yeah, okay, Captain Deflection.”

“Hey, don’t get all psychoanalytical on me. Which one of us has the PhD here?”

“You can’t use that as an excuse to pretend to be an expert on—oh my _god_ , never mind, forget it, can we just do drugs now.”

“Just a minute; I have to update our Twitter. ‘About to suck down mass quantities of nitrous and also dick.’”

“No— _No_ , give me your phone, dude!”

The scuffle for Brian’s phone ends with a balloon clinging to Danny’s hair via static electricity, Brian half buried under pillows and bedding, and the Twitter update reading _About to suck mass quantities of dick_ , so Brian counts it as a win overall.

“You suck,” Danny informs him, reaching up to grab the balloon and pull it from his hair.

“Mass quantities of dick,” Brian reads from his phone agreeably, nodding. “The internet doesn’t lie, Danny.”

“I hate you.”

“Duly noted. Are we going to do drugs now, or do you want to keep putting them in your hair?”

“Don’t say _drugs_ in that stupid voice, holy shit, you make it sound like we’re doing high-quality crystal meth.”

“And yet we’re doing cheap-ass inhalants, which, frankly, I find insulting. I’m not a cheap date, Daniel.”

Danny looks at him fondly. And that—that’s been happening a lot, the ‘Danny responding to flirting with anything other than exasperation or awkwardness’ thing. Brian’s not sure how to handle it. It’s easy to flirt with Danny until Danny stops taking it as a joke.

“Aw,” Danny coos, jumping into bed with Brian and bopping him with the balloon. “I’m sorry. You’re right, baby. Lemme buy you something nice.”

“I want a statue of a dick in my own likeness created with pure crystal meth,” Brian says dully, batting at Danny’s hands before he can get hit on the nose with the balloon again. Jesus, maybe he is Captain Deflection.

“We could probably make a song based on that,” Danny says thoughtfully, his eyes doing that middle-distance thing they do when he’s thinking of possible song titles.

His fingers are working at the knot of the balloon in his hands, and Brian’s gaze is drawn to them the way it always is when Danny’s fiddling with something, unable to keep from watching the pads of his lithe fingers brush against the rubber, his blunt nails tugging at the knot.

God, he wants those fingers in his mouth.

“Ninja Brian’s Crystal Dick!” Danny bursts out suddenly, triumphantly, and Brian startles, torn from his reverie.

He manages to laugh, shaking his head. “I’ll add it to the list.” Along with ‘Ninja Brian Regularly Thinks About Sucking on Danny Sexbang’s Fingers and That’s Not Something He Should Be Thinking About A Coworker, Probably.’

Danny finally manages to work the knot free, and his thumb and forefinger pinch the opening of the balloon closed. “Alright, you watch me first.”

Brian looks at him dubiously. “Right,” he says, “otherwise I might get confused and try to stick the balloon up my ass.”

Danny laughs and bops him with the balloon again. “So stupid,” he mutters. “Just watch, okay?”

Brian puts his hands up in surrender and slides back on the bed until he’s sitting with his back against the headboard. “Teach me, oh great Whippets Guru. Should I take notes? Do you have a PowerPoint?”

Danny’s already bringing the balloon to his mouth, fitting his lips tight over the opening. He flips Brian off with his free hand and then appears to let out the air in his lungs through his nose before he inhales deeply from the balloon. He pauses, then breathes back out into the balloon before inhaling again. He does this a couple more times, each breath getting more shallow, and then he pulls away, pinching the opening closed with shaky fingers as he holds his breath.

His face is flushed, and his eyes flutter closed.

Brian realizes he’s sitting silently, still, attention rapt. He swallows. “Danny?”

A few long seconds pass before Dan lets out the breath in a shuddery exhale. His first breaths of real air come in short, shaky gasps, and when he opens his eyes, they’re glazed over slightly, almost unseeing.

He looks—he looks like he’s waking up from a wet dream, or being tenderly asphyxiated, or coming, and either way Brian’s holding his breath and aware that he’s half-hard in his sweatpants.

Going commando feels, abruptly, like it had been a bad idea.

“Fuck,” Danny says, voice thin and breathy. His gaze lands on Brian as it clears, and he smiles dreamily, contently, the way you’d smile at a lover.

Brian is going to die.

“You okay?” he croaks out.

“God, yeah, I’m... I forgot how good that is.” He twists around a little where he’s sat and then reaches down to snag another balloon off the floor. “Your turn,” he says cheerfully, holding the balloon out to Brian.

“I mean, I—could just watch you again. That was—informative,” Brian says, stilted.

Danny laughs. “C’mon, dude. Time for baby bird to take flight.”

“Why are your metaphors so weird.”

“Just take the stupid balloon,” Danny commands, brandishing it half an inch from Brian’s nose until Brian snorts and takes it.

“Peer pressure turned me into a drug addict,” he intones, grinning when Dan swats at him. He fumbles with the knot of the balloon for a minute until he finally manages to free it up, and some of the gas escapes for a fraction of a second before he manages to pinch the opening shut.

“Don’t overdo it,” Danny says seriously. “You’re gonna get lightheaded, but stop when you feel like you need to. There’s nobody to impress here.” He pauses, smiles impishly. “‘Specially since I’m never impressed by you.”

Brian cheerfully gives him the bird and only hesitates for a second before he bows his head to take the opening into his mouth. He keeps his lips tight, not letting any of the gas escape until he’s ready, and then he follows Danny’s example as well as he can remember.

He lets his breath out through his nose slowly, like he’s doing the opposite of pre-show breathing exercises, and then he inhales.

The gas comes in quicker than he expects, and it takes a moment to figure out the right amount of tension to keep so he’s not overwhelmed.

It’s a bit anti-climactic, not that he really knows exactly what to expect—just like taking in air that doesn’t manage to satisfy the beginnings of a burn in his lungs, the ache for oxygen.

He looks at Danny, who gestures encouragingly.

The burn increases when he breathes in again, and then it happens abruptly, where he suddenly wants to gasp for breath, his brain sending signals that something’s not right, that he’s breathing but it’s not giving him any air.

A fuzzy sort of hum seems to shoot up from his chest into his head, the breathlessness blossoming into an intense head rush, all the small sounds of the hotel room going loud and reverberating, like he’s standing too close to a concert speaker taller than he is.

It turns into something all-encompassing, something more like a rushing tremble that goes straight back into his chest, into his heart.

Brian pulls away from the balloon to gasp desperately and shuts his eyes. Warmth buzzes into his fingertips, and he’s vaguely aware of his hands twitching minutely, and fractal patterns spread outward in a variety of mixing, spilling colors behind his eyes.

It’s almost overwhelming.

He realizes, belatedly, that he’s shaking, that it’s hard to catch his breath, that he’s opening his eyes and seeing without seeing, that when he finally focuses in on Danny that Danny is watching him with faint concern and fondness and—

“Brian,” Danny says. “Hey, Bri, look at me, you’re fine.”

And Brian does look at him, and it’s practically second nature to match the rhythm of Danny’s carefully controlled breathing.

And then—then Brian’s not entirely sure he’s not dreaming, because Danny leans in and cups a hand around the back of Brian’s neck and draws him in to kiss him slowly and deeply.

(Later, Brian will realize that Danny is probably working to coax Brian to match his breathing, to get him to stop hyperventilating and to enjoy the high, but for now—)

As Brian gasps for breath against Danny’s mouth, he’s relieved, somehow, that Danny has kissed him for the first time (truly kissed him, teeth and tongue and no applauding crowd to distract him from it) just after they’ve both inhaled nitrous—it gives him the excuse to be breathless, to be wide-eyed and slack-mouthed and staring at Danny like he's born technicolor in a grayscale universe.

Brian doesn’t want it to end, but eventually Danny breaks away, leaving Brian’s lips buzzing, the rush gradually cooling down. “So?” he asks, smiling at him fondly from where they’re touching foreheads and breathing hard. “What’s your consensus, cool guy?”

“Tubular,” Brian breathes out, dazed and grasping for Danny with weak hands.

Danny blinks once and then bursts into soft laughter, nose scrunching, eyes creasing up. Brian can’t really force himself to be insulted, not when Danny looks as incredible and addicting as he does. “Yeah,” Danny giggles, taking Brian’s hands in his own, pads of his thumbs rubbing at the backs of Brian’s hands like a worry stone, like a security blanket. “Yeah, it is.”

Brian’s pretty sure he’s in love.

“You kissed me,” he says stupidly.

Danny blinks at him. “Yeah,” he says, a small smile tugging at his mouth, like he’s amused. “Further bulletins as events warrant, Reporter Brian?”

Brian gestures vaguely in a way he hopes conveys _what the fuck_ but probably just comes across like _I have no fine motor control!_ “You kissed me,” is what his brain offers up, like a broken record.

Danny’s starting to look somewhat concerned. “Yeah,” he says again, slower. “I kissed you earlier tonight. And, like, last month.”

“Those don’t count,” Brian tells him, and he’s starting to get frustrated, because Danny knows this, of _course_ he knows this, he _has_ to know this.

Dan smiles again, but this time it’s confused. “What do you mean, those don’t count?”

“I mean—” Brian breaks off with an annoyed sound. “I mean they _don’t count_ , Danny, what the hell— Those are just, they’re, you’re just... _celebrating_ ,” he says.

Danny’s frowning now. “Says who?”

“Says—” Brian breaks off again, brow knitting. He stares at Danny, trying to understand.It’s like a physics problem he’s stuck on—all the evidence is there, but he just can’t see the answer. “Says… I don’t know. You never make a big deal out of it. I just figured...”

“What was there to make a big deal out of?” Danny asks, looking bewildered. “I like you. I wanted to kiss you. You never make a big deal out of it, either. Figured you were cool with it.”

“I _am_ cool with it,” Brian says hastily, mind working feverishly to catch up. “I am— I’m the _coolest_ with it, I am _ice cold_ with it, trust me, I have no complaints.” He pauses when he realizes Dan’s starting to laugh. “Alright, well, that’s not necessary, it was an easy mistake to make—”

“Shhh.”

Brian blinks. “Did you just shush me?” he demands, incredulous. “Did you just—”

“Shhh,” Danny hushes again, eyes still creased with amusement as he leans in.

He’s not expecting the warm press of Danny’s mouth against his own again.

A faint noise rises unbidden in him, and he hesitates, caught up in the fact that Danny is kissing him for the second time, hesitates because he’s not supposed to be so lucky, hesitates because he’s expecting to wake up.

He feels the wet heat of Danny’s tongue tease at his lower lip, and instinct kicks in: his mouth opens, and he tips his head to make the angle better, allow them both to press in closer. He’s breathless again soon in the best way, like he’s high again but better, because Danny’s nudging his legs apart and shifting into his lap and letting his hand slide from his jaw down to his neck, his collarbone, his chest.

He hears an embarrassing, protesting sound and staunchly refuses to believe it comes from his own mouth, except he’s definitely trying to pull Danny in again as he breaks away, and Danny’s definitely laughing at him again.

“I don’t want to take advantage of you,” Danny says solemnly.

Brian stares. “What.”

“You know,” Danny stage-whispers, wide-eyed. “In your state. You’ve been _doing drugs_ , Brian.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Brian says, and their next kiss is punctuated with Dan’s laughter.

He’s content to do this for hours, making out with (mostly) innocent roaming hands like necking teenagers; he’s so overwhelmed by just this, by his luck, that he’s not expecting more.

He nearly chokes when Danny slides a hand under the waistband of his sweatpants.

“Why am I surprised you’re not wearing any underwear,” Danny hums in between open-mouthed kisses along Brian’s jawline.

“That’s purely coincidence. Also, not that I’m complaining, but why is your hand— _on my dick_ ,” he strangles out suddenly when Danny’s hand shifts.

Danny pulls away to look at him. “Well, Brian,” he says, “sometimes, when two assholes love each other _very much_ —”

“Shut up.”

“I mean, do you want me to draw you a diagram, or.”

“Shut _up_ , I meant— I didn’t know you wanted more than…” He gestures.

Danny looks fondly amused. “Can we just set a blanket statement that I want to do conceivably everything with you?”

Brian has to admit that feels fucking incredible to hear.

Still: “Conceivably anything?”

Danny’s expression is wary. “Yes?”

“Raising alpacas in South America?”

“ _What_.”

“Melting down twenty-thousand dollars worth of quarters to make life-sized metal busts of ourselves?”

“What is happening here.”

“Stealing those gay penguins from that zoo and smuggling them back to Antarctica.”

Danny kisses him again, presumably to shut him up, but it’s a kiss with fondness and intent and wandering hands with a destination—

And Brian can’t really find it in himself to complain.


End file.
